Portal: Before They Were Cores

Before they were cores:


IDS (Pendleton, Wheatley)/Portal 2 – Electrician.  Black hair. Bright blue eyes.
He's probably one of the most plain and average employees of Aperature, working twice as hard and trying to be as good as the rest. Normally he just did basic repairs and maintenance and due to his clumsiness and poor judgment, he was kept from working on the more crucial projects. When something doesn't work Wheatley resorts to the last tactic: hit it until it does. He's an electrician, not a hacker. Even if he claims to be one.  Nearly fired on several occasions, Cave Johnson saw Wheatley's determination, and Cave couldn't help but think of himself and comparing to Black Mesa: Always feeling like you're a step behind the top dog.  Finally, Cave gave Wheatley a choice to become something great, someone important, a chance to prove that the average guy can be just as valuable as anyone else. And when Wheatley agreed without a second thought, Cave knew he was perfect.


Space/Portal 2 – Astronaut test subject. Dirty blond hair. Hazel eyes.
At one point in his life he was known as one of the best. He was one of the astronaut test subjects that disappeared, and was one many mentioned during the 1968 senate hearings. After going mad due to the effects of the gels and testing, he was hidden away and only brought back out to be one of the earliest test subjects for the brain mapping/core transfers. His obsession of space not only comes from his love of being an astronaut, but comes from his need to escape the confines of Aperature. Later, when in space, he finds that it is just as cold and dark in space as it was in the testing chambers of Old Aperature.


Adventure (Rick)/Portal 2 – Security guard. Medium brown hair. Bright green eyes.
Rick was one of the newer employees at Aperature before its fall into chaos. Hitting a rough patch in his life, he saw an opportunity to start anew in the up and coming Aperature Laboratories.  He was immediately hired on as a security guard because of his background in martial arts. Always feeling the need to show off and the need for adventure, he always found himself getting into trouble. Once employees were forced into being test subjects, he volunteered to be first instead when he saw an employee scream and dragged from the office.  Needless to say, Rick was taken in place and was the first employee to undergo the brain mapping/core transfer process.


Fact (Craig)/Portal 2 – Company lawyer. Red hair. Bright brown eyes. Wears glasses.
After just finishing law school, Craig immediately went looking for work. When he heard about Aperature, he believed the company would go far and gladly took on the role as the company's lawyer. Craig was the lawyer who represented the company for the missing astronaut hearings. After the hearings and seeing what was happening with the company his outlook on everything started to change. Whenever the CEO, Cave Johnson, said something absolutely crazy and/or stupid, Craig recited simple and basic facts to himself to keep himself from going insane like he thought all of the other employees were. After awhile, the CEO said enough to make Craig continually say facts non-stop and eventually the facts started changing and twisting and becoming just incorrect. He was so far gone by that point, he didn't notice when they came to take him away to the brain mapping/core transfer tests.


Morality/Portal – HR Representative. Black hair with purple streak. Blue eyes.
When she first met Cave and saw his passion for science, she believed he was someone who could make a difference. Like Caroline, she did everything in her power to make sure things went well for Aperature, and its employees. After seeing how much the company had changed and how terrible and corrupt it had become, she threatened to leave the company and go to the press. Caroline attempted to calm her down but Morality was hysterical. She was so out of control that Caroline called for security. When security came Cave Johnson came with them. Upon seeing the CEO and hearing Cave tell the guards to take her to testing, she panicked. Anger was put in charge of taking her to the brain-mapping/core transfer tests, but had mixed feelings about the whole situation. She pleaded for Cave, Caroline, and Anger into letting her go, but no one gave in. She pleaded, demanded, screamed, anything she could think of, but nothing worked. Finally, with her voice completely gone from all of the talking and screaming, she gave up and followed solemnly to the testing room. After the transfer, even though she knew what was wrong and constantly thought about it, she felt nothing she would say would change anything, so she doesn't say anything at all.


Curiosity/Portal – Scientist. Blond hair. Hazel eyes.
She was still young, but proved to be one of Aperature's top scientists. However,  her curiosity got the better of her when she started studying the makeup of the different gels used in testing. She found that the gels had serious side-effects on the test subjects. Some of the cases caused insanity and other ranging as far as complete tissue breakdown. Other tests not involving gel had such developments as turning your blood into peanut oil and others turning into mutant mantis men.  She tried to take care of the test subjects as best as she could, while trying to find a cure for the problems she helped cause. When testing became mandatory for employees, she snuck into one of the labs when she thought everyone was finished for the day. She immediately started researching the employees who were already going through testing and found the CEOs file among them. The lights went out as she heard someone enter the room. She began spouting questions all at once even though she knew she wouldn't get the answers, "What's going on? Who's there? Why are you doing this?" Now, asking questions is all she knows.


Anger/Portal – Security guard. Bright red hair. Reddish-brown eyes.
He's good at his job and even better at taking orders. That's what made him one of Cave's favorite guards at Aperature. However, Cave saw Anger's  obedience waiver when it finally came down to bringing Morality to testing. The CEO told him to send her to a different test room and, of course, Anger obeyed. When Anger brought Morality into the test chamber, he noticed it was completely empty. He spun around to see the door close and lock behind him. Because he was so furious at the betrayal, his anger carried over to his core as the dominant trait.


Intelligence/Cake Recipe/Portal  – Cook. Dark brown hair. Dark blue eyes.
Intelligence was a genius when it came to math and science, but anything he learned was on his own. He couldn't afford a proper education and it didn't help he was constantly changing jobs. After dozens of previous jobs he got bored with or fired for because of his smart mouth, he eventually ended up at Aperature Science as one of the part time cooks. When testing became mandatory for all of the workers, he purposely failed written tests to avoid going into any kind of testing. Over time, he noticed that fewer and fewer workers coming in each day he decided it was time to, yet again, find a new job. However, some of the staff grew suspicious by the answers he chose to answer incorrectly on the tests.

How had he figured out exactly which questions would keep him from ANY testing? He seemed to know which questions to get wrong each time an exam was given for testing. And when it came to portal device training, he knew exactly what answers to get right to avoid it.

The testing staff called him in for a 'general meeting' and left a series of puzzles in the waiting room. After waiting for almost two hours he decided to take a look at the puzzles and solved each one in record time. The staff immediately walked in after he finished the last puzzle. When undergoing the brain mapping, he purposely began to think of the most absurd cake recipe he could think of in an attempt to corrupt the testing. It worked better than he thought he would.